I wrote this post last night and, as I was writing, I was drinking a glass of red wine. According to Rick Perry, I suppose this means I was having a gay experience. (Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course.)
Because, as you may have heard, Perry thinks homosexuality is like alcoholism. (Not that I'm an alcoholic, but you get the point.)
At ThinkProgress, Igor Volsky asks if that view will "hinder" his campaign.
Short answer: Not in the primaries, given bigoted Republican views on homosexuality generally, but certainly in the general election, should he make it that far. At least, one would hope that general election voters, those not in the hardcore Republican base, would recoil from such bigotry.
Longer answer:
Perry is not alone. Republican presidential candidates from Michele
Bachmann to Mitt Romney continue to make offensive and homophobic
remarks in debates and on the campaign trail, despite the public's
growing acceptance of gay people. It's unlikely that these positions
will resonate with a constituency beyond the party's social conservative
base, since, as Paul Thornton notes in [yesterday]'s Los Angeles Times, "the
radical ideas espoused by Bachmann, Perry, Santorum and others are
[already] held up not for genuine consideration
but for scorn." "Perry's and Bachmann's views aren't weighed against
President Obama's 'evolving' stance on same-sex marriage; rather, they
are simply ridiculed. It says as much about our society as it does the
candidates."
I wonder if this isn't a tad optimistic -- America has come a long way in a fairly short time, but such bigotry is still quite common.
But I really hope it's the case. Such views, and those who espouse them, deserve our scorn and, in politics, to be held accountable at the polls.
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